A Quote by Maria Semple
I'm not the comedy police, but you watch a movie, and everyone's laughing, and then you shake it out, and you realize, 'There's no joke there!'
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When you watch an audience watching my movies, you realize that nobody laughs at the same time. Some people enjoy a beat, and then another group of people are laughing at a sight gag, and then someone laughs where nobody laughs before. They're not timed like a comedy. You're not supposed to laugh at every joke. You decide.
One thing I hate in ethnic comedy is giving the audience the opportunity to laugh in a racist way at a thing. A lot of times dwarf comedians will do that, Arab comics, and gay comics will do it; everyone is laughing, but they're not laughing at the joke, they're laughing at this crazy character.
Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like, 'Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?' It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy.
Everyone is a comedy. If people are laughing at you, they just don't quite understand the joke that is themselves.
The police who did our training said 'Happy Valley' is one of the only police programmes they can watch and not burst out laughing, saying, 'As if you'd do that.' They think it's really authentic.
Being on a comedy tour is like traveling with family, everyone is all having a great time... then all of a sudden it turns sour. One thing gets said out of turn, and everyone is on everyone's last nerve. After an hour of silence, we all start laughing about it.
When I was working with Barry Sonnenfeld, I'd watch him set up a shot and talk to him about what he was seeing and what it was to shoot comedy. He told me that a lot of times with comedy, it's not just about getting the joke, but getting a reaction to the joke. That's the laugh - it's somebody's else's reaction to the joke.
I believe comedy is a really good lens to filter serious issues through. If people are laughing, they don't necessarily realize until they stop laughing that they just took something in that's going to start a conversation.
I had dreams of conehead aliens when I was little. Before 'Saturday Night Live' did it. And then they came out with them, and I went on to be a glorified extra in the movie. When everyone else was laughing, I was scared.
I'm not opposed to doing science fiction or comedy, but there has to be respect. I refuse to be the joke, the fat woman joke, in any movie. I've turned down roles.
The funny thing as an actor is that you show up on the set, and your key goal really is to make the scenes that you're involved in honest and real. You're not concerned with the technical aspect of things, and then you sit in the movie theater, and you watch it with everyone else, you realize that, 'Man, this is pretty exciting.'
You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It's like that.
I have become a giant fan of the testing process, especially with a comedy. I mean, they tell you what's funny. It's almost tailor-made for people who shoot the way we shoot, trying a million different options and versions of things. Because the audience doesn't laugh at a joke, we put in another joke. If they don't laugh at the next joke, we put in another joke. You just keep doing them and you can get the movie to the point where every joke is funny, if you have enough options in the can.
I think Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have done so much for women in comedy in the sense that they've normalized it. You don't think, 'I'm going to watch that comedy starring a woman,' you think, 'I'm going to watch that funny show.' They refuse to play the foils for men, or be reduced to the butt of every joke, and I love that about both of them.
Then you have these people in the movie theaters that talk the whole time during the movie. You ever go with somebody like that to a movie but you don't realize until you get there that you're with somebody like that? Brand new movie. First day it's open. You're there together and the entire time they're sitting there: Where's she going? Why'd he do that? Is he mad at her? I don't know, let's watch and find out together shall we? You know who you are. You're denying it right now: I do not do that. Why is she saying that?. What's she gonna say next?
My joke is that three black people watch 'The Daily Show' at any given time. So if I'm watching it, that counts, and there's only two left. It's a silly joke, but you know, different types of comedy reach different cultures.
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